Britain's Balanchine? Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is fêted in America, and now Edinburgh is paying tribute to his brilliance. He talks to Ismene Brown in The Daily Telegraph.

The new Picasso, the new Mozart, the new JK Rowling – maybe it's human nature that the loud-hailers of art need always to know where the next fix of genius is going to come from. In the ballet world, the search for the successor to George Balanchine, the Russian who dominated the 20th century and founded American ballet, has been frenetic ever since he died 10 years ago. For fate to supply a matching genius so soon seems unlikely, but a young fellow from England has been found whom even the least hyperbolic critics in America believe is something real, a master in the making, rather than a pretender.

Suite smell of success The hottest name to drop, Christopher Wheeldon is set to storm the festival. By DEBRA CRAINE for The Times:

AS FAR AS DANCE is concerned, the Edinburgh International Festival has always prided itself on being different. The festival’s guiding principle is to present attractions that can’t be seen elsewhere in Britain, so inevitably there’s an international slant to the programming. That’s certainly true this year with the dance programme, which features the Cullberg Ballet from Sweden, Compagnie François Verret from France and their compatriots the Bordeaux Opera Ballet.

After a decade dancing with the Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet, Christopher Wheeldon retired in 2000 for a new career as a choreographer. In 2001, he created Polyphonia with music by Gyorgi Ligeti for the New York City Ballet - it won rave reviews at the Edinburgh Festival and an Olivier award. This year the San Francisco Ballet will be performing a showcase of Wheeldon's works, including the world premiere of a new ballet, specially commissioned by the Festival.

Wheeldon leaps to new heights By Jackie McGlone for Scotland on Sunday

IN ONLY a few short years, Christopher Wheeldon has become ballet’s answer to David Beckham - a blue-eyed, blond, beautiful Brit who is adored for his astonishing talent, his glamorous good looks, and a career that spins daily to new heights. If only Beckham could bend it like wunderkind Wheeldon.

Olivier Award-winner Wheeldon’s life is a whirl of activity. He is New York City Ballet’s (NYCB) artist-in-residence and is making a new piece for San Francisco Ballet, which they premiere in Edinburgh next week, and which is appropriately entitled Rush.

When we met in New York earlier this year, the golden boy had just staged the world premiere of Liturgy, the ninth of the "utterly distinct, fully mature, brilliantly executed ballets" he has created for NYCB. The Newsday critic quoted went on to write that the Somerset-born, former Royal Ballet dancer "could be the best thing to happen to ballet for 50 years".

IN ONLY a few short years, Christopher Wheeldon has become ballet’s answer to David Beckham - a blue-eyed, blond, beautiful Brit who is adored for his astonishing talent, his glamorous good looks, and a career that spins daily to new heights. If only Beckham could bend it like wunderkind Wheeldon.

Olivier Award-winner Wheeldon’s life is a whirl of activity. He is New York City Ballet’s (NYCB) artist-in-residence and is making a new piece for San Francisco Ballet, which they premiere in Edinburgh next week, and which is appropriately entitled Rush.

'I try to suppress the urge to scream' He is the world's most explosively talented choreographer. And he's only 30. Christopher Wheeldon tells Judith Mackrell for The Guardian about 'extreme ballet'.

Early this year, the directors of the world's most important ballet companies met in Suffolk for a historic summit. Top of the agenda was the crisis in repertory: where were all the original, even half-decent new works that could ensure ballet's future? Where was all the fresh talent?

Thankfully, one choreographer is single-handedly proving to be the answer to their dreams.

Christopher Wheeldon - All the right moves By Hilary Ostlere for The Financial Times

If choreographer Christopher Wheeldon worked in the business world he would be a captain of industry, a billionaire perhaps, by now. At 30 he's a brilliant artist whose success cannot be counted in dollars or pounds so much as in the growing appreciation of his work and demand for his product: namely ballets. And since good choreographers are as rare as fat ballerinas, he's achieved international renown - a growing chorus of critics, dance pundits and public are hailing him as one of today's brightest and most promising young choreographers in an art form that's always hungry for, but sadly lacking in, great choreographic talent.

Completely dedicated to dance, Wheeldon has grown from a "bossy little boy", as he describes himself, whose first efforts at choreography at the age of eight had to do with little girls hatching out of eggs to become cygnets in Swan Lake, to a continent-hopping choreographer whose every succeeding work seems to stretch his artistic horizons further.

And still they come! It's the turn of the sunday Herald to interview Christopher Wheeldon:

Ballet’s action hero Festival Dance: Revered in the world of modern ballet, young British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has a triple-bill coming to Edinburgh. Ellie Carr met him for The Sunday Herald:

He has been hailed as the saviour of modern ballet. But although Christopher Wheeldon has been known to wear tights, he insists he is no Superman. Seen as ballet’s brightest young hope, British-born Wheeldon is resident choreographer at New York City Ballet (NYCB). And he’s honoured at this year’s Festival with a triple-bill of works performed by another of his long-standing collaborators, San Francisco Ballet (SFB). But he says: “If I spent too much time thinking about being the action-hero, in the end I wouldn’t be able to defeat the dragon. There’s too much pressure that goes along with dwelling on what people are saying about me – as flattering as it is.”

With a gift as rare and precious as any gem, Wheeldon is a choreographer destined to go down in the annals of dance history as a true legend. Those who witnessed his Mercurial Manoeuvres and Polyphonia at the aforementioned Festival show will remember him well. The former saw row upon row of cloned dancers moving with precision timing, interspersed with exquisite pas de deux. The latter showed how fluently Wheeldon speaks Balanchine’s neo-classical language - albeit translated into a fresh and exciting new vernacular. Legs twisted and turned with astonishing intricacy, leaving no margin for error - perfect for a company as technically proficient as New York City Ballet, and equally suited to the wonderful San Francisco Ballet.

London, New York, San Francisco. And, imminently, Edinburgh. This summer Christopher Wheeldon has jetted across oceans and time zones with such frequency that the old gag about meeting himself en route hovers on the verge of possibility. Why this need to be up in the air almost as much as on the ground? Because Wheeldon, at 30, is a seriously hot property: sought after by theatre directors and musical producers as well as ballet companies.

THERE’S a dancer in everyone, everyone has dance inside them, says Christopher Wheeldon - and he should know.

As the ballet world’s fastest rising young choreographer - he works regularly with the New York City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, who are performing three of his works at the Festival this week - the 30-year-old former dancer is well placed to suss out new talent.

Whether Christopher Wheeldon's talent is big enough to sustain a whole evening turns out to be the least interesting issue in San Francisco Ballet's unique, all-Wheeldon programme. Of course, there are moments when the choreo-grapher's invention sags or when we want a different voice. Certain tricks of phrasing recur and the sheer cleverness of Wheeldon's craft, his unrelenting inability to put a foot wrong, call attention to themselves as they wouldn't in a programme of mixed choreography.

No frills but plenty of thrills By Debra Craine The Times Edinburgh Playhouse

Quote:

IT’S the fag end of the Edinburgh Festival. The Fringe is over, the backpacking revellers have gone home and the Royal Mile has more or less returned to a sedate normality. But if you’re looking for buzz, you can still find it down the hill at the Edinburgh Playhouse, where San Francisco Ballet is bringing the Festival’s official dance season to a close.

Ballet, program of Wheeldon works pair up for bright, focused evening in Edinburgh

Alastair Macaulay Special to The San Francisco Chronicle

...

As seen from Britain, San Francisco Ballet -- while dancing Balanchine ballets here in 1999 and 2001 (above all, in its overwhelming 2001 account of his "Symphony in Three Movements" at Covent Garden) that match or surpass any other current Balanchine standards we've seen -- looks like the most present-tense major-league ballet company in the world. ... If the company feels this way at home, San Francisco is the happiest place to watch ballet today. <a href=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/30/DD303175.DTL target=_blank>more</a>

It's worth noting that Macaulay can be a tough critic and does not hand out plaudits lightly. His final paragraph is high praise indeed from him, in particular, "If the company feels this way at home, San Francisco is the happiest place to watch ballet today."

For a while I felt indignation on behalf of the Company when some writers persisted in using obselete league table frameworks and described them as a "Regional" company. San Francisco Ballet is now at a stage in its development where one can smile at such misguided statements and move on.

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